IFTTT – or If This Then That, to give it its full title – is a wonderful productivity tool that can be used to integrate the various services offered by the apps on your iPhone. It enables you to effectively program your iDevice by creating Recipes that connect particular processes. So you could ask IFTTT to create a process that monitors YouTube for a particular happening and ask it to do something specific in another app when that occurs. This is done via a process of triggers and actions and with so many apps involved, from social media to cloud services to Google, you’ll be sure to find at least one Recipe that will make a real difference to you. With Recipes created by others giving you inspiration, IFTTT has proven to be an essential internet tool and here we look at some of the great things it can do.

Facebook to Photos

You can ensure that every time someone tags you in a photo on Facebook that the image is automatically added to your phone for safe-keeping. To do this, select Facebook>You are tagged in a photo and then iOS Photos>Add photo to album. Press Finish.

Photos to Twitter

If you are covering an event or if you simply want any photo that you take with your iPhone to be shared, you can ask IFTTT to post a tweet whenever you take an image with a certain camera. Select iOS Photos>New photo with the rear camera, then Twitter>Post a Tweet.

Save favourite tweets

Pocket is a brilliant app that lets you save internet-related goodies to view later. You can set it up so that any tweets that you mark as a favourite are stored in Pocket – this is brilliant for saving handy URLs. Select Twitter>New favourite tweet by you and Pocket>Save for later.

Spreadsheet new contacts

When a new contact is added to your address book, you can back it up and keep a business-like log of it by allowing IFTTT to add the contact to a spreadsheet in Google Drive. Go to iOS Contacts>Any new contact and Google Drive>Add row to spreadsheet.

Reminders to Evernote

Create a new reminder in the Reminders app and have it create a note in Evernote. Go to iOS Reminders>Any new reminder and select Evernote>Create a note. This recipe lets you add Evernote missives via Siri too since reminders can be created via voice command.

Check time spent

IFTTT can determine when you are in a particular location and, in this case, make a diary entry in Google Calendar. Select iOS Location>You enter or exit an area, determine the boundaries and choose Google Calendar>Quick Add Event. This can be handy for timesheets.

Save YouTube videos

You don’t always have time to watch videos and you may want to keep certain videos in one spot. Select YouTube >New watch later video and Pocket>Save for later. Now every time you click Watch Later in YouTube, the link will be stored in Pocket.

Social media profiles

Save some time and link your Facebook and Twitter accounts so that profile picture changes made in one will be automatically updated in the other. Select Facebook>Your profile changes and Twitter>Update Profile Picture and then press Finish.

Attachments to Dropbox

Having to scour email inboxes for attachments can be a real pain especially if you just leave them in there. Instead, set up IFTTT so that when an attachment is spotted, it’s saved to Dropbox. Select Gmail>Any new attachment and Dropbox>Add file from URL.

Email RSS alerts

You can monitor RSS feeds manually, of course, but you can set up IFTTT so that when certain words appear in certain feeds, you are sent an alert. Select Feed>New feed item matches, insert the keywords and feed URL and then select Email>Send me an email.